Clothing Demons

I'm going to tell you two significant truths that nobody told me: a child increases the dirty laundry in your life by 300%, and working in clothing retail will decrease your desire to do your laundry by 1000%.
So at this time in my life, the likelihood of me doing any laundry is at -700%. That number doesn't take into account the emotional energy it requires to start the task, or my precious time. OR my looming depression.
Cook dinner? Gladly!
Clean the bathroom? I'm your girl.
Dishes? Way ahead of you.
But between a toddler that loves to "cook" and my aversion to laundry... the pile of loved clothing has adopted a personality. A personality that I don't get along with. It taunts me by tripping me in my most rushed moments. It swallows my favorite clothing pieces. It laughs when I try to find one out of ten pair of black leggings, and then cackles when I take a sniff and the leggings are exponentially more potent than they possibly could have been when I wore them last! This pile has become my worst enemy. It's hungry for more clothing, spreading itself across my sacred space and swallowing my hope of ever having an organized life, inch... by... inch. It's a monster that needs to be slain. And I'm a weakling. My only weapons against this horrible creature are my lack of pride and propensity to procrastinate. Totally unhelpful! It's like taking steak into your fight with a dragon. All that will happen is the dragon gets to eat, and you lose both your steak and your life.
I am losing my space and my life to this stupid, arrogant pile of clothes.
This is where this post gets real. I have depression and anxiety. Anybody who relates to this dynamic duo know that it's definitely, well, dynamic. My anxiety looks at the laundry demon covering my life and runs away. My depression looks at the demon and sighs because I know that if I just did it, I'd be reclaiming my space and my peace. So, in order to win the fight against the stupid dirty laundry, I have to first battle myself. I have to convince my anxiety that the pile won't absorb my soul, and convince my depression that I do, in fact, have the power to change my surroundings and, by a short extension, my level of happiness.
All my life the cleanliness of my bedroom and my stress levels have walked hand in hand. If my depression increases, the mess follows, which then amplifies my depression. If my stress increases, I have to clean furiously to remain sane. I've been hovering between these two states of being for quite a while, wanting to reclaim my carpet so that I can get out of my mental funk, while also telling myself that it doesn't matter because I don't matter.
People! It's an exhausting way to live! So how can you win?
I learned early in my partnership with depression that it's absolutely a PARTNERSHIP. It will always be with me, even if it's dormant and I'm clearing the wake of previous mental destruction. Because it's inevitably ongoing, I learned that my unique partnership with my darkest self requires help and aid that are equally unique. I wish I could say there was a cure-all for depression, but that will never be the case. I've experimented with my personal helps, and I hope that everyone everywhere will continually do the same. But, if this post is feeling familiar so far, maybe my helps can be a weapon for anybody else battling the depression laundry!
1. I make my bed.
2.I push absolutely EVERYTHING on my floor into a giant pile. Books, shoes, all of it. This is the step that gives me hope, because LOOK. CARPET. IT'S STILL THERE.
3. Stack books and papers.
4. Put shoes away.
5. Find all the depression snack trash and send it to hell.
6. Separate dirty from clean laundry, or, depending on your energy levels, just throw it all into laundry buckets.
7. This is the best step. Set timers for the load switches, grab some snacks, and watch comedy on netflix.
8. This is the most important step. As each clean load comes out, fold it immediately.
9. Put all laundry away. It doesn't take long!
10. Do a victory dance. You did it, boo. You sent the dirty laundry monster back to its hiding place to hibernate.

Just writing this post has made me a little angry. I dislike the pile that much. But I love myself more than I hate laundry, so I guess I'll stop using writing as a procrastination technique and make my bed.

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